Parish' and 'City' -- a Shifting Identity: Salisbury 1440-1600

Early Theatre 6.1(2003) audrey douglas ‘Parish’ and ‘City’ – A Shifting Identity: Salisbury 1440–1600 The study and documentation of ceremony and ritual, a broad concern of Records of Early English Drama, has stimulated discussion about their purpose and function in an urban context. Briefly, in academic estimation their role is largely positive, both in shaping civic consciousness and in harmonizing diverse classes and interests while – as a convenient corollary – simultaneously con- firming local hierarchies. Profitable self-promotion is also part of this urban picture, since ceremony and entertainment, like seasonal fairs, potentially attracted interest from outside the immediate locality. There are, however, factors that compromise this overall picture of useful urban concord: the dominance of an urban elite, for instance, may effectually be stabilized, promoted, or even disguised by ceremony and ritual; on the other hand, margi- nalized groups (women and the poor) have normally no place in them at all.l Those excluded from participation in civic ritual and ceremonial might, nevertheless, be to some extent accommodated in the pre-Reformation infra- structure of trade guilds and religious guilds. Both organizational groups crossed social and economic boundaries to draw male and female members together in ritual and public expression of a common purpose and brotherhood – signalling again (in customary obit, procession, and feasting) harmony and exclusivity, themes with which, it seems, pre-Reformation urban life was preoccupied. But although women were welcome within guild ranks, office was normally denied them. Fifteenth-century religious guilds also saw a decline in membership drawn from the poorer members of society, with an overall tendency for a dominant guild to become identified with a governing urban elite.2 Less obvious perhaps, but of prime importance to those excluded from any of the above, was the parish church itself, whose round of worship afforded forms of ritual open to all. Yet each church was uniquely defined: by its history, dedication, and parish boundaries; by building form, furniture, and decora- tion; by memorials of its dead; and by its cult of particular saints. The individuality thus created offered a sense of belonging for even the humblest parishioner. A small offering for the Font Taper, the gift or planned bequest 67 68 audrey douglas of a cooking vessel to be sold for the church fabric, a Whitsun dance or Hocktide meal – these all presented opportunities, particularly for the poor and for women, to participate in and belong to a community that was at once identifiable, stable, and perpetual. At the same time each stage of a parishioner’s life was normally affirmed by public ritual conducted in the local church (wedding, baptism, churching for newly delivered mothers, and funeral). In addition, while the parish church provided a primary and local focus for citizens’ loyalty and identity, the periodic functioning of guild and civic ritual within a parish context brought awareness of the city’s business, while individuals, through municipal office, trade interests, networks of extended kin, and friendship, necessarily maintained links that stretched beyond the immediate locality.3 This short introductory discussion is not intended to over-emphasize the role of the parish church, but simply to point out its capacity to transform those who believed into those who belonged. Thus each local church housed a wide variety of men, women, and children, all of whom might be brought, through its functioning, to some sense of confident community, rooted in an immediate and local context, but sensible of wider municipal concerns. Drawing on material for Salisbury, I shall further argue that parish-based customary or ritual activity acted to minimize social tension, balancing parish identities and loyalties against their civic counterparts. These circumstances, however, were substantially altered in the wake of the Reformation: first, fundamental changes occurred in the nature of the parish and its community; second, there was a shift in the popular perspective from parish to city, a process set in motion in the fifteenth century but accelerated by the impact of reform on parish life.4 Before examining this argument, we must first look at the broader scene for other circumstances that helped to minimize or defuse tensions within Salis- bury society. Of prime importance were the history and layout of parish and municipal ward. The city’s eighty-three hectares, bounded by a rampart or bank to the north and east and by the river Avon to the south and west, encompassed only three parishes, roughly equal in extent and population. Their boundaries largely corresponded to those of the city’s wards with whom they shared a date of origin in the thirteenth century. Thus the parishes functioned as de facto units of municipal government, electing aldermen to the common council and for one short period providing, as local units, men for the midsummer watch. Secondly, we might note that, despite evidence suggesting the concentration of trades in different areas of the city, these trades, during the period under discussion, do not appear to have become ghettoized, with one or more trades confined to any one parish.5 Similarly, while crafts ‘Parish’ and ‘City’ – A Shifting Identity: Salisbury 1440–1600 69 maintained lights in particular churches, those individuals whose names are linked with each of these churches came from a wide variety of occupations.6 Third, in general, no major, overt ecclesiastical clash of interests seems to have intruded upon the city’s relations either with the bishop as diocesan, the subdean, whose peculiar the city was, or the cathedral chapter. Relationships between individual churches were similarly stable. Appropriation of St Thomas’s rectory to the cathedral fabric gave the chapter a close interest in that parish, whose priests were often drawn from chapter personnel; the chapter was, in fact, the chief patron of a Whitsun parish dance for which it provided lavish refreshment. Ties between St Edmund’s parish and St Martin’s parish were established c 1268, when the former appropriated the latter’s vicarage and thereafter provided the parish curate. Salisbury parishioners’ bequests are often indicative of good relationships that existed among the parishes and with the cathedral. Bishop Poore, founder of New Sarum and its cathedral, had urged citizens to remember the cathedral fabric in their wills, and small bequests of this kind are commonly found. But testators also reveal their ties to more than one parish: for instance, Joan Story (representative of many Salisbury testators), whose will was proved in 1555, requested burial at St Martin’s, to whose high altar and Holy Ghost altar she left small sums; but money also went to the high altar and Jesus altar of St Thomas as well as to the cathedral fabric.7 Fourth, while Salisbury’s wealth is reflected in its ranking among pre-Ref- ormation English towns, there is no sign of a permanently dominant or entrenched elite in municipal government that could so easily have become a factor in the creation of tension – whether founded on wealth, status, family, or topographical considerations.8 The exact relationship of the pre-Reforma- tion confraternity of St George, to which the mayor and common council belonged, to an original guild merchant is uncertain. Clearly the brethren were careful to maintain a diverse and balanced relationship with the urban population. The confraternity’s presence, for instance, was manifest in all three parishes with regular obits. Two (and possibly all three) parishes possessed an image of St George, with which the brethren processed to and from church on their feast day. While the confraternity chapel was apparently at St Thomas’s, the mayoral election customarily took place in St Edmund’s church.9 As we shall see, in later days pews were assigned to the mayor and mayoress in all churches. Fifth – and probably the most important – whatever internal political or economic tension may have arisen, it had as a legitimate object the bishop’s overlordship of the borough. This situation, as perceived origin of the city’s woes, provided a focus for most civic frustration, that is, until Salisbury 70 audrey douglas received its royal charter of incorporation in 1612. Architecturally, the city was dominated by the cathedral and its soaring spire, a constant reminder of episcopal lordship, with the Close itself confined exclusively to the bishop’s jurisdiction. That the mayor had to take his oath before the bishop’s bailiff was perhaps the most painful symbol of subjection. In consequence, no civic ritual evolved around this event, as it did in Bristol, for example, to signify the relationship established between mayor and citizens or to proclaim and en- hance civic identity.10 Nevertheless, despite occasional periods of friction, the bishop’s real powers were steadily eroded, and by the end of the sixteenth century mayor and council had achieved de facto control in areas of taxation, musters, execution of royal writs, and regulation of city markets, as well as episodic connection with commissions of justice. It is against these circumstances that we may now evaluate the role of the three parishes in pre-Reformation Salisbury. For their liturgical life the importance of the neighbouring cathedral was paramount. Tradition held that Bishop Osmund, second bishop of Old Sarum (outside the present city) and builder on that site of the first cathedral, had founded the widely influential Sarum Use. Of this Use, the second cathedral, in New Sarum, was true heir, continuator, and practitioner. All three parishes, then, must have been con- scious of this authoritative model on their very doorstep. Most visibly, it found expression in the round of processions maintained in the parishes. The importance of this fact cannot be overemphasized. Procession was crucial in defining the identity and consciousness of each parish; at the same time it provided a periodic ritual renewal of relationships with neighbouring parishes.

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